Wednesday, 25 April 2012

In a recent article in the Chartered Institute of Building's journal, Construction Manager, an article appeared regarding the general satisfaction from designers and contractors with the level of service from Building Control/Regulations departments and professional. The full article can be read HERE.

My experience also concurs with this view, especially when using the Building Notice route. Nestling at the bottom of the A3 on the border of Hampshire and West Sussex, I deal with a good number of local authorities including Havant Borough Council, East Hants District Council (now in partnership with the Southdowns National Park Authority, Portsmouth City Council, Fareham Borough Council, Gosport Borough Council, Chichester District Council and others. Without exception my experience with these councils has been very good from both a design point of view and from the builder's when constructing the extension, conversion or other project.

Television programmes and the media in general can show building inspectors in a poor and often adversarial light, and in my opinion this is unjustified, especially with the Building Notice route where often the designer, builder and other professionals find building inspectors to be a useful sounding board for ideas with alternatives often coming back.

Friday, 20 April 2012

This is a question we often get asked. The answer we give is that there are many different types of architects, engineers and surveyors specialising in a wide range of areas within the construction industry, so we cannot give a definition for them.

What we can say is that chartered building engineers are qualified construction professionals who take projects such as an extension through each stage of the design process and more. Chartered building engineers' training and strengths are in design (such as aesthetics and appearance), building technology, construction science and architectural technology.